


It's a Small Crime (I've Got No Excuse)

by Aud_Horne



Series: A System of Touch (and Gentle Persuasion) [5]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 22:16:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2042283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aud_Horne/pseuds/Aud_Horne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You mean the wine?” She takes another sip. “If you’re going to keep doing that all night, I’m going to need something to my dull my senses.” At his self-satisfied smirk she adds, “It’s cute that you think it’s because of that… sweaty shirtless thing you’ve got going on.” She waves her hand to indicate his…body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a Small Crime (I've Got No Excuse)

“Alright guys, I’ll see you later tonight,” she says as she hands Sara and Roy her earpieces.

Sara tucks it into her ear and readjusts her wig. “Thanks, Felicity,” she glances at Oliver across the room and then leans in close and whispers to her, “good luck with that,” and with a wink, she’s pulling Roy up the stairs and out the door like they can’t get out of there and start patrolling fast enough. She understands.

She turns to go back to her seat but stops when she spots Oliver picking up his bow. “Can you not do that?” She says, and it’s not really a question.

Oliver’s brows shoot up his forehead. “This is kind of what I do.”

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and counts to five before releasing it and opening her eyes back. She stares passively at him.

“Relax, I’m staying right here.” He walks, well, limps to the drawer where they keep the tennis balls. “Target practice,” he clarifies, tossing a tennis ball at her.

She catches it without blink and hurls the ball back at Oliver, who raises an arm to shield his face. “I don’t care if you were planning on hunting all the spiders hiding down here and shooting them with arrows, Oliver. You were _shot in the foot_ last night.”

He frowns. “I told you I’m fine.”

“And I told you. _I don’t care_.” She uses her loud voice this time and Oliver looks kind of shocked. “Look, I know you want to be out there. _I_ want you to be out there because then you won’t be in here, but tough luck. Just, for my peace of mind, please, just stay off your feet for tonight.” When he doesn’t respond, she adds, “I am not above calling Diggle and explaining to him that I’m bugging him and his pregnant girlfriend because _you won’t stay off your feet._ ”

“Fine,” Oliver says, and he sounds like such a petulant child that Felicity was almost surprised that he doesn’t stomp his foot, but hey, bullet wound.

“Thank you.” She smiles at him with genuine gratitude and turns back to sit at her desk and start working.

Between the music she’s put on in the background while she works and monitoring Sara and Roy’s comms, she’s had no time to pay attention to what Oliver was doing (which is probably good because she remembers reading somewhere that toddlers on time out should be left alone so they can think about _why_ they’re in time out) but she figured she wouldn’t miss the sound of arrows whizzing by and hitting tennis balls and since she doesn’t hear either, he’s probably fine. A little broody, but fine.

But then she hears the familiar clanking of metal. Oh boy. She tries to count to ten, but it doesn’t help. She marches towards the salmon ladder and Oliver’s just hanging from the lowest rung, smiling at her like he’s been waiting for her to show up. “What are you _doing_?”

He grunts and goes up a rung. “Staying off my feet, just like you said,” he says, his face the picture of innocence.

She doesn’t know what to say so she mostly just growls at him and stomps upstairs.

By the time she gets back a few minutes later, bottle of wine and wine glass in hand, he’s doing pull-ups on the beams behind her monitors. She ignores him as she opens the bottle and pours herself a glass of wine.

One of his hands lets go of the beam but his other arm doesn’t stop with the pull-ups and she hates him a little bit. He raises an eyebrow questioningly and when she takes a sip of wine in answer, he finally asks, “What are you doing?”

“You mean the wine?” She takes another sip. “If you’re going to keep doing that all night, I’m going to need something to my dull my senses.” At his self-satisfied smirk she adds, “It’s cute that you think it’s because of that… sweaty shirtless thing you’ve got going on.” She waves her hand to indicate his…body.

He stops what he’s doing and frowns. 

“Oliver, you remind me of this one time my mom wouldn’t let me go to a movie on a school night. I stayed at home but I made sure to let everyone know I was upset. By doing my homework _very_ loudly. I was fourteen.”

He rolls his eyes and makes his way across the ceiling like a kid on the monkey bars.

“I have no idea how you plan on getting down from there but if I hear you jumping down I’m calling Dig!” She sets her glass down and goes back to work.

A few minutes later she hears him ask, “Do you have another glass?” from directly behind her.

Felicity shrieks and barely avoids falling off her seat. She spins around and he’s looking at her expectantly. He’s freshly showered with a towel around his neck.

“Do I even want to know how you got down from the ceiling?”

“Probably not,” he answers as he lifts himself by his arms and sits at the end of her desk, kicking his feet to emphasize that he’s staying off them. “Just one glass, then?”

“Yes. This wine is for me. So I can deal with you,” she says, pointedly taking a sip. 

He shrugs and grabs the bottle, drinking straight out of it.

“I swear to god, Oliver,” she says, but it comes out as more of a frustrated sigh. She drains her glass and sets it down and then cracks her knuckles and goes back to work.

He refills her glass and tries to lean closer to see what’s on her monitors. “How are they?” 

She jumps slightly and clicks out of the window she was just on and brings up the feed from the traffic cameras she’s been following Sara and Roy on. “They’re good. Nothing more serious than a mugging. They're on their way to the warehouse district from the docks. Roy wanted to do a sweep around the area under the bridge by the homeless shelter on 5th and Hewitt and then they’re heading back after that.”

“Felicity, were you on _Facebook_?” 

She stutters and blushes (she doesn't even know _why_ she feels like she's been caught because it's not like she's at work or anything.) so she drinks more wine to cover it up. “Shut up and drink your wine, Oliver.”

He ignores her and scoots closer to get a better view. The table shakes slightly and she’s about to tell him to stop doing that, but he presses on, “No, you were, who were you looking up?”

She sighs and gestures for a refill. “I was looking at this baby. I mean, my friend’s baby,” she takes a sip, “ so like a bunch of my high school friends have babies now right, and it’s just so weird. I’ve had to attend _baby_ _showers_.”

He doesn’t say anything, just drinks more wine, which she thinks is his way of asking her to continue so she does.

“Okay so, my friend Trish,” she clicks back to Facebook and pulls up her friend’s profile, “so we’re not _actually_ friends but anyway, she had a crush on this guy I was dating…”

An hour later, Oliver is pouring the rest of the wine into Felicity’s glass and they've moved on from Facebook. Now, she’s explaining to him how Pandora works. He probably doesn’t understand half of what she’s saying, but he doesn’t stop her and he’s been sitting for the past hour so she keeps going. She’s draining what’s left of her glass when Sara and Roy get back in.

Roy makes the lamest excuse ever, drops his earpiece on her desk, and rushes back upstairs to go see Thea. After pulling off her wig and packing it away, Sara saunters towards them, winks and Oliver and leans toward Felicity under the guise of returning her earpiece to whisper, “Looks like you didn’t need luck after all.”

She’s too warm and a little bit buzzed from the wine so she just doesn't really think about what Sara said and just smiles after her as she walks to the bathroom, gym bag in hand. When Felicity turns back to Oliver, he’s digging into her purse to take her car keys. 

He stands up and hands her purse back to her. “You drank most of that bottle. Come on, I’ll call you a cab,” before she can argue he continues, “don’t worry I’ll take your car and have Dig pick you up tomorrow.”

“But your foot…”

 Oliver sighs. He probably thought she’s forgotten. _Ha!_ “Will it make you feel better if I had a cane?”

She laughs and nods.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [9 Crimes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di0RVeUQ8i4) by Damien Rice.
> 
> Still talking prompts on [Tumblr!](http://aud-horne.tumblr.com/ask)


End file.
